OK (deep breath). I just posted pictures of my first plied yarn on my blog. Considering I have been spinning since November, I suppose it is OK. It certainly is usable, and I want to make myself a hat from it. I DO see where variations in the widths of the singles came together. I also spent a lot of time evaluating every 5 inches or so for a balanced yarn, and you can see from the picture that the skein is not twisting, so maybe that went OK. I would LOVE some feedback on things to watch for next time. Thanks!

I love the colorway and it actually is not too thick and thin. Evenness comes with time and then you will eventually want a nice thick and thin yarn and it will be tremendously difficult. Treasure your yarn. It's beautiful.firymist

Your yarn is really lovely! I am certain you will be pleased with it when you knit it up. Plying, then knitting, helps to even out any uneven tendencies that anyone's handspun has. With practice you will get more and more even but you yarn at the moment is fine.

Yes, some people do get rather obsessive about wanting their handspun to be perfectly even but, IMO, if it is even yarn you want to work with then buy machine spun yarn! Enjoy the journey spinning will take you on - every bump and every turn on the way!

Thanks everyone. Once I got some emotional distance from that close up photo, I am back to loving it. I remind myself that I don't want my sweaters looking machine knit either! As for the size of the skein, my spinning wheel has HUGE bobbins, which is just great! I have a Columbine, which you can see at http://www.ncidata.com/~columbine/. In design I suppose it is a lot like the Ashford Country Spinner. The friend who sold it to me told me she really misses those large bobbins for plying, and I think, if I had anything else, I would already have a Woollee Winder. I was careful to remember to switch bobbins half way through the fiber I had (a half pound of combed top), so those bobbins were only about half full. The skein you see in the picture was held by just one bobbin for plying. I have been working on my spindling too, and am at a bit of a loss at getting these little bitty amounts of yarn wound around a toilet paper roll! Not sure how to handle a lot of that.

Rob, you did wonderful work! Your skein is hanging nice & straight, so you've got it balanced. The colors are lovely, too. That is yarn to be proud of! It looks like you've got a lot of it, too; I bet you could get a hat & scarf out of it.

--Susan T-O in Long Beach CA

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.'" --Isaac Asimov